The daughter of troubled former football star Paul Gascoigne has thanked well-wishers after he was pictured being put into an ambulance after reportedly being found slumped outside his home.

The ex-England player has a long history of problems with alcohol, and yesterday the 47-year-old is said to have been taken away by emergency services from his home in Dorset.

Twitter users sent messages of sympathy and support to his model and reality star daughter Bianca, which she retweeted.

The 27-year-old wrote: "Thank you for your kind words."

Pictures published today show Gascoigne looking gaunt and almost unrecognisable from his footballing glory days.

Gascoigne's agent declined to comment.

In a TV documentary shown last September, the star described the pain of fearing he might start drinking again, despite knowing it could kill him.

The ITV show Being Paul Gascoigne revealed he was addicted to sweets and spent £1,000 a year on anti-wrinkle jabs to counteract the ravages of drinking.

The star of the Italia 90 World Cup, whose teams included Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Lazio, Rangers, Everton and Middlesbrough, spoke about overhearing doctors say he might die when he was being treated in the US.

Friends from sport and showbusiness clubbed together last year to pay for his treatment.

He said: "I just remember one bit after the third day of being in hospital when he (the doctor) said 'I don't think this guy is going to make it' and I sort of put my head up a little bit and I was like, tubes in my arms and an oxygen tank injecting round my heart and lungs and that.

"I just come forward and I went 'I don't want to die, I need to water the plants' and that was it and then I woke up two weeks later."

He added: "With me now, if I did have a drink and relapse, it's like becoming tipsy and merry is OK for a couple of days but like the next mouthful I'm so down, I'm so depressed, I cry. I do all that because I know inside I'm hurting myself again. I know where I'm heading - a wooden box. Or I'm back in treatment or hospital. Or getting sectioned."

Gascoigne said he had been "lucky twice" after almost dying from drink, saying: "I hope I don't die through it.

"Because I won't get any sympathy... because, well, 'he was warned'. At least I know if I did pass away through it I wouldn't be in this pain all the time.

"The pain's like, I know probably in the future I am going to drink again. I know in a year's time I am going to have f****** hassle again and, you know, family worrying and Sheryl (his ex-wife) worried, the kids worried, nephews worried, friends are worried.

"I just think sometimes, just think f****** hell. Just go away i.e. drink or me go away - and that means a wooden box and six nails... and I don't know why, I just don't know why I f****** pick up the drink."

Many football-lovers consider Gascoigne to be one of England's most talented players.

His outrageous sense of humour during his playing days brought him love from fellow players and from the terraces, even if it led managers to despair about the scrapes he got into.

His mentor Sir Bobby Robson famously dubbed him "daft as a brush".

Just hours before his latest health scare, it emerged that Gascoigne, born in Dunston, Gateshead, was to make a return to football playing for a Sunday League side.

Now living in Bournemouth, where he has been treated for alcoholism, he was recruited to sign up for Abbey FC in the Hayward Sunday League Division Four by taxi driver and manager Chris Foster.